TAIEX drops on Wall Street fall
The TAIEX closed down 0.68 percent yesterday after an overnight tumble on Wall Street amid concerns over the global economy and the latest spate of debt problems related to Ireland’s banking system, dealers said.
The TAIEX fell 56.67 points to 8,255.54, after moving between 8,228.24 and 8,284.51, on turnover of NT$81.70 billion (US$2.69 billion).
The market opened down 0.75 percent in a knee jerk reaction to Wall Street’s heavy losses, dealers said. The selling extended throughout the session, with the financial sector suffering the steepest decline, dealers said.
A total of 2,531 stocks closed down and 1,142 up, while 347 remained unchanged.
CPC Corp extinguishes fire
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said a fire at its Kaohsiung refinery has been extinguished without any impact on operations.
The fire occurred on a pipeline away from the plant’s main area and didn’t cause any disruption, CPC vice president Paul Chen (陳綠蔚) said by telephone yesterday.
Two contract workers suffered “slight” burns in the incident and have been treated in hospital and discharged, Chen said.
Taipower to increase bond issue
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) plans to issue NT$109.3 billion (US$3.584 million) in bonds next year, more than the NT$89.2 billion sold this year, after posting a pretax loss of NT$16.2 billion for the period from January to last month, public relations representative Clint Chou (周義岳) said by telephone yesterday.
Fed stimulus to keep rates low
The US Federal Reserve’s new economic stimulus will keep interest rates at a record low in the West for an extended period, making global high-yield corporate bonds ideal investment options, ING Securities Investment Management Taiwan Ltd said yesterday.
Joep Huntjens, senior investment manager at ING, told a Taipei media gathering that the second quantitative easing measure adopted by the Fed, intended to avoid the double-dip recession scenario, would allow companies to raise funds at lower costs and many firms have issued new debts to pay down existing debts to save on interest expenses.
Huntjens said he expected high yield debts to generate an annualized return of 6.1 percent, 4.7 percent more than that of government bonds on average.
Globalsat approves bond plan
Globalsat Technology Corp’s (環天衛星科技) board approved a plan to sell up to NT$300 million in three-year unsecured domestic convertible bonds at zero coupon, the Taipei County-based company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
The proceeds will be used to replenish working capital and repay debt, the GPS receiver maker said in the statement.
NT dollars falls on intervention
The New Taiwan dollar fell in late trading on speculation the central bank intervened to prevent currency gains from eroding exporters’ earnings.
The NT dollar earlier rose as much as 1.4 percent. It fell 0.2 percent to NT$30.793 against its US counterpart as of the 4pm close of trading, according to Taipei Forex Inc. The currency has strengthened 5.4 percent since June as overseas investors pumped US$6.8 billion into equities this year.
The central bank said yesterday that capital flows have become the main factor in the fluctuations of the exchange rate of a currency, and the NT dollar was no exception. Bigger currency fluctuation can help ease the impact from foreign capital flows, the bank said in a statement.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
ENERGY ISSUES: The TSIA urged the government to increase natural gas and helium reserves to reduce the impact of the Middle East war on semiconductor supply stability Chip testing and packaging service provider ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday said it planned to invest more than NT$100 billion (US$3.15 billion) in building a new advanced chip testing facility in Kaohsiung to keep up with customer demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. That would be included in the company’s capital expenditure budget next year, ASE said. There is also room to raise this year’s capital spending budget from a record-high US$7 billion estimated three months ago, it added. ASE would have six factories under construction this year, another record-breaking number, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu
The EU and US are nearing an agreement to coordinate on producing and securing critical minerals, part of a push to break reliance on Chinese supplies. The potential deal would create incentives, such as minimum prices, that could advantage non-Chinese suppliers, according to a draft of an “action plan” seen by Bloomberg. The EU and US would also cooperate on standards, investments and joint projects, as well as coordinate on any supply disruptions by countries like China. The two sides are additionally seeking other “like-minded partners” to join a multicountry accord to help create these new critical mineral supply chains, which feed into
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
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